Three major environmental threats facing South Africa will be discussed by University of the Free State Centre for Environmental Management professor Dr Anthony Turton at an upcoming environmental conference.

Environmental consultancy Environmental Assurance (Envass) will, for the third year, host the EnviroCon 2011 conference, in Hartbeespoort, on November 17 and 18.

More than 40 companies are expected to participate in the conference, which will discuss environmental threats, solutions and opportunities.

Turton’s first issue for discussion will be South Africa’s water-constrained, mining-based economy.

“For the last century, little emphasis was given to environmental rights or social justice issues and, as a result, the national economy is dominated by mining, which has been largely unregulated, and the externalities of that process are coming back as constraints to future progress,” says Turton.

He states that mining produces 80% of the total national waste, yet is not governed by normal waste management regulations, as the waste is defined as spoil, and therefore reusable. It is estimated that 410 000 t of uranium lies abandoned in various dumps across the Witwatersrand continental watershed divide.

“The result of this is dangerously high radiation levels,” says Turton.

The second threat is the environmental degradation that Turton believes the agriculture sector has caused.

“Agriculture has left a legacy of massive pollution by agrochemicals that our environmental sink can no longer absorb,” he says.

Lastly, the fact that Gauteng employs 25% of South Africa’s citizens, and major cities are not located near any rivers, lakes or the sea, but straddling the continental watershed divide, is another concern.

Turton feels the country is on the right path to environmentalism, but, as a whole, it is not doing enough.

He says South Africa has a Constitution that mandates development that is sustainable and sets out specific rights asso- ciated with the environment.

“However, we lack two things: firstly, the capacity to enforce the laws, and, secondly, there is no equity between the jurisdictional reach of the Department of Mineral Resources and the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs. The battle for equity between these departments is being waged by nongovernmental organisations in the Mapungubwe area, the Groot Marico region and the Karoo,” says Turton.

He states that the mining industry is moving into a new regulatory landscape that is different from what it is used to, while the country is transitioning into a situation where national food security is no longer guaranteed and the national energy policy is no longer sustainable. “This will need a major rethink as the fact dawns that it is water that limits energy options, not the availability of coal.”

The EnviroCon conference aims to find solutions to these environmental problems and assist the private sector and government in mapping out action plans to change the course of the ever-degrading environment, states Envass.